Something Wicked
by Orin
Summary: In which Knuckles is a vampire, Sonic runs from him, and there are no great metaphysical truths but there is blood and italics. ONE SHOT


DISCLAIMER: I shalt not make an ass out of myself this time. The Sonic universe and things canonically mentioned herein are property and copyright Sega. No profit. There. Asslessness. (It's a permanent condition -- don't laugh.)

WARNING: Herein be blood and death, possible innuendo and much oddity. That be all the warning you shall receive. Read at your own risk. (My vague obligation is done.)

NOTE: This be a strange-strange AU ficlet based on Nocturnal Creatures, which most of you have never read or heard about but that's fine because it sucks both literally and metaphorically. So, Something Wicked – In which Knuckles is a vampire, Sonic runs from him, and there are no great metaphysical truths but there _is_ blood and italics.

And if you look very closely, and turn your head just so- there even be slashy subtext. Yes, you can run now.

_SOMETHING WICKED_

_**_

Sonic told Knuckles this once, in a conspirational whisper:

Being a hero is difficult. But if you want to be a martyr, well then, all you have to do is die. 

_**_

_Sonic runs._

_He runs because it is what he does best. He runs because he cannot turn and fight. He's no coward you understand, but he cannot fight. He runs because if he doesn't run, he's dead. It's very simple. Sonic runs because there's no other option left to him. _

_Sonic runs._

_His ragged panting rips apart the silence; the panicked footfalls rustle dead leaves underfoot. Each stolen step is like hot brands up his leg. He knows his ankle is broken. Perhaps his knee as well. As Sonic runs anyway, one foot in front of the other and even though he's in pain, it still takes him a bit to realise that if he keeps running, once he stops he might never run again. That the damage will be too great to heal._

But to stop is to die. Or to kill. He can do neither. 

_So he runs. _

_The late winter air is light and icy and the moonlight paints shadows upon the dark. Imposing boughs and branches and leaves seem to create an ominous evil all of their own._

_And Sonic is running. He is leaving a trail. A trail of blood._

_He is being followed too. Of course he is being followed._

_Hunted._

_But it doesn't matter. Not really. The blood. His heartbeat is as loud as a clarion call. Sonic knows it beats across the distance that separates, like a siren's song. _

_He knows that Knuckles hears. Is listening. Is following._

_**_

Sally was never one to banter with pleasantries. We can't undo it she had said. Very to the point. No heartbeat, no pulse, blood pressure non-existent. He was dead. No comfort. He had tried to kill her. She had not quite forgiven him.

She never quite forgave him.

Knuckles had taken it well. All things considered. But he dealt. He was good at dealing with things. Bend or break. The echidna had never liked breaking.

Well. Things. Not people.

Well-

Point was, he had bent, and not broken.

**

_Sometimes, when Sonic's foot pounds and the pain shoots like liquid fire along his leg, he forgets. _

_It's a simple reaction, a normal one he knows because he has encountered it so often before. The lancing ache is enough to make him howl internally and want to stop, just for a moment, because he's running too slowly anyway and there's the trail and his heartbeat and Knuckles can hear that- smell that. And what's the difference if he stands and fights, or dies because it-_

_Because it-_

_Then the pain and sometimes Sonic forgets because._

_Forgets that he used to eat three meals a day. Not square because Sonic still believes that chilidogs are among the basic food groups, but meals nonetheless. _

_Forgets that beds are for sleeping. Not for dying. _

_Forgets about the days. The nights. The longest nights._

_Forgets- and his other foot and it's an instant respite until- _

_again._

_Forgets that onceuponatime Knuckles used to blink and breathe and was actually alive and did not need blood to survive-_

_Forgets how long he has_

_been running._

_Been dead. Not breathing needing blood and those eyes were always bright but after _

_after. _

**

Sonic should have killed Knuckles when he had the chance. Knuckles had told him so. Warned him once, and then twice and then after that, Sonic had stopped counting- until he could not remember the last time Knuckles had warned him. 

It should have told Sonic something. It did not.

He would probably not have listened anyway. Still sought the echidna out. Because Sonic always did have the world's shortest attention span and he kept forgetting the infinite stupidity of it all when he looked at Knuckles and talked with Knuckles, because Knuckles gave him the benefit of the doubt.

And when no one else gives you that- it's something you cling to.

**__

_It's instinct that finally brings Sonic to a rolling halt._

_This gut-whisper that rises to a scream, and makes him drop to his knees, hands braced forward and pull into a roll and up and crouched and on the ground still, heart humming, blood pounding- pounding so loudly he knows it is heard, has to be. And his bones ache._

_But Sonic isn't focused on that because the reason he ducked to a roll has landed only a few feet away. And that he did drop, and that it probably saved his life does not surprise him because Sonic has always had very good instincts. _

_Always._

_Knuckles stands in the glade. Just stands there. He's not out of breath because sometimes he doesn't breathe. His eyes are cold and they remind Sonic of ice, if ice was violet and dark and could speak sometimes. Sometimes Knuckles' eyes speak. When they do not look dead. Now and then.  _

_Now, they just look dead. Now, they just look._

_And the echidna is sanguine grace; even Sonic can see it, appreciate as Knuckles blinks and velvet blood glides over violet ice. He slips in and out of shadows because it has always been second nature to him. Now it is first. So he does it better._

_Sonic knows he needs to watch Knuckles, keep his eyes locked on the slender red form as he moves closer, because Knuckles is out for blood. _

_Because Sonic cannot run anymore and so there needs to be-_

_closure_

**

He was warm. Sonic had always thought it strange. He breathed. He gasped. The occasional sharp inhalation.

Automatic motor response, he had said with perfect candidness. Some part of the brain did not know the body was dead. Hence the occasional urge to breathe. 

Knuckles had always sounded like he was talking about someone else. 

Someone already in the grave.

Was it irony that he had only grown a sense of humour after he had died? Or was there another term that fit better? Sonic had never been able to decide. Irony was the best he could come up with.

Whatever the term, it was funny in a very twisted way. Which was probably why Knuckles had laughed when Sonic had mentioned it to him. 

Knuckles had a very twisted sense of humour.

**

_He wears no shoes. He stopped doing that because he said they made too much noise._

_He was right. They did. Now he is soundless. Almost not there at all._

_The white-crescent mark remains. Colour of nothing. White like grief, like ghosts and frost and dead things. Knuckles had white gloves once too. But he has not worn them since his hands got covered in blood that one time. _

_Stains he said._

_So, no more gloves._

_Sonic has never missed them. He thinks he should have, their familiarity, but he never has. Knuckles' hands are… strange. Long fingers, larger than Sonic's and his claws- Sonic never knew they could kill, those claws. But then he saw Knuckles drive them through the throat of a pasha that one night, angry and beyond hungry and suddenly realised that they were very dangerous too._

_Pretty. Deceivingly so. But then, isn't everything?_

Knuckles isn't pretty. Sonic has never thought him as that. He's strange. Sometimes stunning. Recently he was something else. Now he is just dead. And dangerous. 

_And Sonic has the scars to prove it._

_There is one on his ankle, stretched along the tendon of his Achilles heel. It pulls as it always does as he rises unsteadily to his feet. He does not waver once he stands though. Sonic was born on his feet. It takes a lot more than exhaustion and blood loss for him to waver. _

_There is a second scar on his wrist. On both, but it is the left one that bears significance because that was the earliest. That was the scar he got that first night, when he was still not afraid. _

_When he still trusted completely. _

**

Knuckles had told him once, that Sonic's blood tasted like chocolate. 

Sonic had shrugged off the observation later. And laughed. But he had never forgotten. You don't forget when you're told that your blood calls to someone's soul. You can't.

Only, Sonic had often wondered if Knuckles had a soul. Or a heart. The metaphysical kind. At least, after the change. But now and then, Sonic made the mistake of looking into Knuckles' eyes, brighter that they should be always, and everytime he did, he saw the horror of that first night, the thirst for revenge and pain and the hunger. The savage lust for the hunt. And the loathing.  

Self-hate isn't productive. Knuckles indulged anyway. 

Sonic helped.

Every bite. Every consented drink. Sonic helped.

**__

_"Red…" _

The nickname's irony occurs to Sonic just that instant. Just that second after the word leaves his lips and he blinks and stares.

_Knuckles blinks too. Knows that finally- finally- Sonic gets it. _

_Knuckles does not laugh. _

_Though it is not to say he can't, he has since that night, many times. Sonic has made him laugh. But he doesn't laugh now. Although he can't quite conceal the smile – which is little more than a lifting of lips to bare deadly teeth- but still, he cannot quite contain it. _

_It surprises Sonic. Knuckles often looks at him, at the nickname. Once he used to growl at it, and after that he used to ignore Sonic and eventually, Sonic wore him down enough so that whenever Sonic called him 'Red', Knuckles would answer._

_It's only now, that Sonic has made the connection._

_Knuckles moves aside slightly, a little dance of death. Subtle and almost-not-there, but Sonic sees it. He sees the violet ice drop as though to savour the single scrap of Sonic's voice. The dry, dead syllable. _

_"Yes?"_

_A question. Almost quaint. He is playing. He knows Sonic knows he's playing._

_He just doesn't care._

_It's payback._

**

For a long time Knuckles had fought it. 

For days and nights. And there had been times when Sonic had been sure that Knuckles was nothing but a husk because he would just sit there in the dark and not move, not blink, not breathe, and every day he seemed to get smaller. To shrink in on himself, like his body unable to get the blood it needed had decided to eat him from within. 

Some nights, Sonic had counted his ribs. Or the vertebrae along his spine. Like charting contours on a map.

But he could only fight so much and eventually the press of Sonic's wrist against his mouth was enough to force his lips to part, his tongue to swipe out and everytime he sunk his teeth into Sonic, Sonic screamed.

Every time.

**

_Sonic watches him. Always watches him. _

_Eyes to face. Blank and blanker. _

_Dead and not-quite-but-not-long-now._

_"You don't expect me to go down without a fight." _

_Not a question. Of course not. _

_Sonic stopped asking questions the moment he saw those dead eyes. Now he states. Knuckles can either agree or not. He does not know it and will never know it, but Knuckles prefers when Sonic speaks in statements and not questions. Because Sonic is smarter than he knows himself. And he doesn't need the validation that questions will give._

_He has never figured this out though._

_He never will._

_"You haven't fought. You've only run."_

_Once, Sonic would have growled a denial. Adamant or furious. And it's not even that long ago. Last night. The night before even. _

_"I didn't want to kill you," he says softly._

_Knuckles gives him a smile. It's not forced. He never put the effort into forcing false sentiments when he was alive; he is not about to start now._

_"Again."_

_Sonic's breath catches. Knuckles' humour. The humour that took dying to bring to life. So alive, it almost makes Sonic laugh. Because it is almost funny. But Sonic can't find the breath to laugh._

_So his whisper-quiet agreement of, "Again," is barely heard._

_But heard nonetheless._

**

Knuckles had never gone back to his island. He had never returned to the sky or the emerald or the tropics or the place he had vowed to protect until his life's end.

Sonic had never asked him why. Sonic knew. The last was gone. The ties were severed because he was no more and there was no more, could never be more. There was blood and the struggle to catch life while it fluttered away, a rare and exotic butterfly. And an always elusive failing to be caught with every metaphorical net imaginable.

Sonic knew Knuckles had a memory that beat his own without even breaking a sweat. Sonic knew Knuckles would recall his home when he closed his eyes or sometimes when he sat in the corner and did not eat for days and days that it was because he was doing just that. That maybe he was remembering what it had been like. To feel the sun.

The light.

But it was only memory.

There was only darkness.

_**_

_"But you have a choice now. Because you can't run anymore." _

The speculation is only written in Knuckles' eyes for a moment, but Sonic sees it. There is no pity there.

"No. No more running for me." 

_Sonic takes a breath and as his ribs expand there is a faint pain under them. He does not know if it is his heart or just a punctured something-or-other. He cannot find it in himself to marshal the care for either._

_He wants this over and done with. _

_Knuckles wants it more though. So when Sonic blinks, he springs because it only takes a blink and Sonic has never realised this until now. He has never seen how fast Knuckles could be. Or was never shown. _

_Either way, the result is the same._

_Red and redder and fangs tearing down and Knuckles makes a soft sound and Sonic thinks he might be screaming but he can't be sure he can only hear his heart roaring in his ears and the rush of blood and Knuckles hands are big and powerful and they clamp down so that he can't pull away _

_escape_

_He twists and pulls and turns but Knuckles holds on, teeth clamped and pulling back, like a terrier with a rat._

_And Sonic closes his eyes and shudders as he smells the blood. _

_His blood. _

_And as he feels the rivulets down his neck. Drops that escape. With every stolen inhalation he can smell the copper and salt and he can feel the suck and pull at his throat as he bleeds out. It slips out easily. Greasy as syrup. _

_He is silent when he could cry out. No one can hear him, he knows this, and he wonders if he can stay alive a bit longer by holding it in. _

_holding it in_

_holding on_

_**_

Because it was what they did, Knuckles had said once. After of course. He and Sonic had talked a lot more After than Before.

They held on.

They chose.

They chose. Everyday they chose. They chose who lived and who died. By saving and not saving and it sucked but that was the way it was. It was a war, and no one really won. Because it was pointless and endless and stupid. And you died. Or you survived.

And Knuckles said to Sonic once that the only thing that separated the dead, from the survivors was-

A heartbeat.

And sometimes, that a heartbeat was very overrated thing indeed.

**

_He thinks as he falls, just before his knees meet cold unforgiving earth and the impact jars and the pain makes him forget- Sonic thinks how for once it does not hurt._

_It should hurt more._

_Surely, bleeding to death slowly, oh so slowly, having the blood sucked from a wound in your neck ought to be agony. All those times before there was pain. And it hurt. Sonic remembers it hurting like nothing else, the sweep of tongue against slivers of meat that was his parted flesh-_

_It should hurt more. _

_He should be more afraid. Of death. Of dying. Or what Knuckles is doing, making him feel._

_Because it isn't pain._

_And it sure as hell isn't fear._

_It's a slow creeping warmth. It's desire, though Sonic does not know that. He does not know that it always hurt before because Knuckles always wanted it to hurt. Before. That each time was a warning. One last warning. One last-_

_The last._

_Until Sonic ran out of chances._

_Then he ran._

_Knuckles holds him close, merciless and Sonic forgets to breathe and in the red darkness he thinks he can hear Knuckles' dead heart beat. The darkness wavers and hurts but less than the light if Sonic opens his eyes. The sound of his breathing fuzzes like static._

_Sonic wonders through the haze, if Knuckles will lick his fingers clean, after._

_After._

**

Sonic had asked Knuckles once what it was like. After.

After. The heart, how it stops and how everything is clearer and things are sharper and brighter and you can see further, hear more and the world is realer- more than it was because you can only appreciate how alive everything is, when you're dead.

Sonic had asked. 

He had not expected any great universal truth from Knuckles. But neither had he expected what Knuckles had told him, voice dry and eyes blank.

Life sucks, Knuckles had said. You die, and then life sucks again.

**__

_ And Knuckles licks his lips._

_And he leans back. And he watches._

_Sonic finds it almost funny, almost does and would laugh if-_

_-if he could just breathe_

_With Knuckles close enough to hear his heartbeat flicker and that's just weird I mean how can you be alive and not have a heartbeat, Red?___

_fluttering like a butterflies wing and _

_Faltering and Sonic is holding on because it's instinct and he does not need your blood or any blood and I don't- won't be ruled by… by… _This feeling__

_All muscle and cat-like grace and red velvet_

_Bone and fur_

_And it isn't pleasure it hurts but it hurts in a good way and so can it be called pleasure anyway?_

_Red_

_Blood _

And everything is heavy and thick and red and he feel's like he's choking on it, choking, but what comes out of his mouth is a soft sigh.

Sinking. The feeling.__

_It's like falling_

Sinking feeling? That's almost cliché, Red. 

_forever_

Being a hero is difficult, y'know. But if you want to be a martyr, well then, all you have to do is-

_die _

**

FIN

  
**

…

This is why my muses hate me.

Don't tell me this sucks, I already know- but, if you really need to rant, go right ahead, venting is good.

This is up here only because I have this insane-wonderful boyfriend who has taken it onto his head to convince me that posting up my writing is good, and that this site has its merits… and because I am slowly beginning to believe him. 

Yes, I did say he was insane. 

Oftentimes I am just as insane as he is. 

Love you all, except the people I cannot stand- but mostly there is love. In little plastic cups. You can take it home with you.

Take care,  
~Orin.


End file.
